Grace did not answer. She was gazing at the signature of the letter with perplexed eyes. She was wondering why the name Denton seemed so familiar. Remembrance came suddenly--Ruth, of course. With that recollection came a sudden startling train of thought. Ruth's father had gone west, had been heard from in Nevada, then disappeared. Jean's friend had lost his wife and child on a westbound train. Here, however, Grace's supposition proved weak. Both wife and child had been burned to death in the railroad wreck. Still, mistakes in identification were frequently made on such painful occasions. Grace went back to her first supposition. "It is the only shred of a clew that I have run across yet," she reflected. "I am going to hang to it and see where it leads. And to think that perhaps old Jean once knew Ruth's father. It's unbelievable." "We must start in ten minutes." David's crisp, business-like tones brought her to a realization of her immediate surroundings. "Ten minutes is long enough for me to say what is on my mind," Grace said eagerly. Then she began to tell of Ruth, her poverty, and her great wish to know whether her father were dead or alive. Knowing Grace as they did, her friends guessed that she had something of real importance to impart. When she came to the part about Ruth's father going west after promising to send for his little family, a light began to dawn upon them, and Jessica exclaimed: "Why, they must have been killed while on their way to join him!" "It is so. Mamselle speak the truth!" almost shouted Jean. "It was then they die. He have tol' me so many times." "Then the man who saved Jean must have been Ruth's father!" exclaimed Miriam, "and a dreadful mistake was made in telling him his child was dead, too. The packet fastened by a cord about Ruth's neck ought easily to have proved her identity. Perhaps the packet was stolen." "Then how did Ruth come by the watch and letter?" asked Grace. "I give it up," replied Miriam. "It certainly is a tangled web." "But we shall straighten it," said Grace resolutely. "The next thing to do is to find Mr. Denton. Tell me, Jean, how many years since you first met Mr. Denton?" Jean counted laboriously on his fingers. "Twelve years," he finally announced, "an' say his family have died six years then." "Eighteen years," mused Grace, "and Ruth is twenty-two. The years seem to tally with the rest of the story, too. Will you give me Mr. Denton's address and allow me to write to him, Jean?" "Whatever Mamselle Grace wishes shall be hers," averred Jean. "Then I'll write the letter to-morrow. The sooner it is written and sent, the sooner we shall receive an answer to it," declared Grace. "That is unless he is dead. But I have a strange presentiment that he is alive. What do you think, Jean?" she turned to the old hunter, who nodded sagely. "I think my frien', he alive, too," agreed Jean, "an' I hope, mebbe I shall see again."